Pharmaceutical Technology

Pharmacosmos ventures into oncology and merges with G1 Therapeutics

Pharmacosmos will secure its second FDA-approved drug and first oncology therapy, G1 Therapeutics’ Costela as part of the merger.

As Pharmacosmos Therapeutics looks to enter the oncology market, the company has entered into a definitive merger agreement with G1 Therapeutics, with the former’s US subsidiary acquiring all outstanding shares of G1 for approximately $405m.

Pharmacosmos is expected to pay $7.15 per share of G1’s common stock, a 68% premium to G1’s closing share price of $4.25 on 6 August. The deal is expected to close in Q3 this year and will be an all-cash transaction funded through Pharmacosmos’s existing cash reserves along with its existing corporate credit facilities.

The deal is centred around G1’s lead cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor Cosela (trilaciclib). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Cosela to decrease the incidence of chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC), in 2021.

Cosela raked in $46.3m in sales last year, as per G1’s financials. GlobalData expects the therapy sales to increase exponentially, with Cosela expected to pull in over $471m by 2030.

GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.

Following the deal close, Cosela will be the second FDA-approved product and the first oncology therapy, in Pharmacosmos’s pipeline. The only other FDA-approved therapy in the company’s portfolio is Monoferric (ferric derisomaltose) indicated to treat iron deficiency anaemia.

Recently, G1 suffered a major setback in Cosela development when the therapy failed to show efficacy in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). In June, the Phase III Preserve-2 trial (NCT04799249) failed to meet the primary endpoint of overall survival (OS), with a median OS of 17.4 months in the Cosela arm compared with 17.8 months in the control arm.

Another therapy in Pharmacosmos’s pipeline is transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia therapy, SP-420. The company gained the therapy as part of the acquisition of AbFero Pharmaceuticals, in 2021. SP-420’s ability to remove iron from organs in subjects with transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia is being evaluated in a Phase II trial (NCT05693909).